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Skeith
Skeith is a powerful weapon with the potential to break the entire game of Sword Art Online. It is a central item in Sword Art Online: Clashing Blades and Sword Art Online: Last Light. It is the first stage of Akasha, and is the opposite equal of Corbenik. Background Skeith is the result of a glitch in the coding of Sword Art Online that allowed for numerous game breaking glitches to enter the game. Kayaba Akihiko quickly noticed the glitch and fixed it, but not before a piece of the corrupted coding was released into Aincrad. This small bit of data is able to perform numerous game breaking acts when wielded by a player. It is not a hacking method, as thought by many, but simply a weaponized glitch used to alter the game in numerous ways. The first player able to control Skeith was Majora. It is known that Skeith was at one time much, much stronger than it was by the time Ishi acquired it, with the ability to destroy the entire game just by existing, as when Majora obtained it the majority of its power was not suppressed by Corbenik as it was after Yamato combined the two. Properties Skeith has no definitive appearance, simply appearing as a cluster of data drifting around Aincrad in any place, on any floor, at any time. It is also very difficult to see as it moves along with the non corrupted data of the game itself. Any player attempting to control Skeith runs the extremely high risk of their player data being corrupted and deleted, therefore killing the player character and the player in real life, and simply being near the corrupted data cluster will cause the player's data to slowly glitch out and corrupt. Containing Skeith is possible, however, and players who manage to do so are granted mastery over the game in very much the same way the Game Master himself does, although since it is corrupted data it will also corrupt the entire game if large scale feats are attempted, which can crash the game and kill everyone in it. While contained, Skeith appears in the player's inventory and skill list in a corrupted inventory space or skill spot, which serves as its container. Skeith's appearance in this state varies from user to user, but usually appears as a holographic-like piece of data on the user's arm when in use. With each successful use of Skeith, player data will slowly be corrupted little by little. Although the game will recover the corrupted bits of data as it is supposed to, excessive use of Skeith will permanently corrupt user data, and lead to the player's deletion. The safest time is at least a month between uses. It has been shown that just being in possession of Skeith can lead to extreme mental instability and insanity, and excessive use of Skeith will drastically quicken the process of mental degradation. It also been shown by Majora that an extreme mental fortitude can resist player deletion and death, but corruption will still take place, and insanity will still set in, albeit at a much slower pace than normal. A constant trait of Skeith reflected on the user is the appearance of the left eye of the user, which always glows and leaves a visible color trail in the air over the eye while Skeith is in use. What determines the color of the eye is unknown, and appears to be random. Majora's was a brighter shade of his original eye color, while Ishi's was a blood red and Hao's was dark orange. Another trait of Skeith takes place in the real world. The user's real body will bleed from the mouth or nose when being hurt by Skeith in game, be it the user's enemy or the user himself. The reason for this is unknown, as the NerveGear does not behave in any abnormal ways whenever this happens, and there is no real injury to the body either. The user's body can also convulse and make noises as if the user was conscious and in real pain. Although this doesn't usually happen to the user of Skeith, unless it is used too many times or used to perform a large act, such as Data Drain, it occurs 100% of the time with victims of Skeith. Players who have had their pain inhibitors permanently removed by Skeith, either from wielding Skeith or being affected by it, will lose their HP bars, and instead have the same vulnerabilities as they would in real life. A single cut that would otherwise take a bit off a HP bar can now instantly kill the player. The amount of punishment a player can withstand in this state is completely dependent on how much punishment the player can take in real life, instead of their health being monitored by a HP bar. Healing items will still work, however, and will reduce pain and restore vitality, but for major injuries rest is needed, as it would be in real life, and depending on how bad the injury is, a player can be bedridden for weeks. It has been shown that Skeith possesses at least some level of sentience, actively seeking to tear apart its user's mind to assume control. Skeith works to manifest the darkest aspect of its user's personality and make it so strong that it completely takes over their psyche, allowing Skeith to gain control of the player. The player is already considered dead at this point, and cannot be recovered in any way whatsoever, not even by Corbenik. Players who are exposed to Skeith or players that wield Skeith also have their color cursors removed, meaning that they can freely inhabit towns without NPC guards harassing them, even if they are player killers. Like Corbenik, Skeith is only compatible with certain players, and is impossible to capture by most players of SAO besides the fact that it corrupts whoever is near it. Skeith's effects on others, such as the removal of pain inhibition, the HP bar, or color cursor will seemingly happen at random to players affected by Skeith from proximity, and there is a chance that a player will receive any combination of effects from exposure to Skeith from any random length of time. However, all effects will immediately be applied to the player wielding Skeith. Abilities As noted, Skeith has the potential to permanently corrupt and crash Sword Art Online, as well as performing game breaking acts for the player controlling it. However, if a player attempts to alter their player data to, for example, grant invincibility or level themselves up, Skeith will corrupt the player's data and in effect kill the player, making these alterations impossible. However, player data can be changed to some extent indirectly (ie. altering an item that gives certain buffs to a player), although it is still dangerous, as either the item will be corrupted and erased or the corruption on the item will spread to the player and both will be erased. There is no real way to learn how to use Skeith, and everything done with it is based on chance. As a weapon, Skeith has the ability to completely destroy NPC or PC data instantly, ignoring all variables, erasing everything about the player or NPC from the game. This allows for easy kills, but also deletes the experience and money value, as well as any drops it may have. Further, any unique NPC enemy destroyed by Skeith will never respawn, as the data of the enemy itself is erased along with the avatar of the enemy. The Game Master is not excluded from this. Data Drain Skeith possesses the ability Data Drain, which collects all player and NPC data around it and slowly corrupts it, bringing in data toward the user before releasing it in a powerful data explosion that corrupts and destroys game data within a large radius. This ability also disables NerveGear without killing the player, but puts players in permanent extreme psychogenic pain in the real world, which cannot be cured and usually ends the player's life within 10 minutes. Data Drain also directly siphons HP from the player using it, and depending on how long the data is charged up, and how much HP is taken, the radius of the drain and the resulting data blast can be amplified. This HP draining effect also causes physical pain for the player using it. The HP data of the user will not be corrupted and is able to be restored by normal means, although the player will need to recover from the pain of the Data Drain, which, depending on how much it was charged as well as the fortitude of the player, can take a while. Data Drain can also be focused on single targets, drastically accelerating the corruption rate and requiring less HP drain to take effect, but lacks the data blast of a radial Data Drain. Chasers Majora was known for using Skeith to project small digital weapons around himself to attack enemies, known as Chasers. Chasers are a means of using Skeith at long range, attacking enemies from afar to corrupt and destroy them. Chasers is not a natural ability of Skeith and was created by Majora to be able to use Skeith at distance. How he achieved this is unknown, but it is speculated that Skeith simply followed his will and rectified his need to be able to use Skeith at range, adding to the versatility of the weapon. Skeith Avatar Skeith was able to gain complete sentience by killing Majora and assimilating his personality and traits, forming it's own consciousness, and as a result, becoming Skeith Avatar. Skeith Avatar is an entity in and of itself, exhibiting clearly human characteristics and traits, as well as being fully aware of it's existence in a game and what the outside world is. This was the most powerful single form of Skeith, at which point not even Corbenik on its own was able to match it. Nonetheless, it was eventually destroyed by Yamato. Users Majora Majora experienced a rapid decrease of mental fortitude and sanity immediately upon acquisition of Skeith. It quickly drove him over the edge, exploiting Majora's darkest attribute to make it grow and consume him. Majora was by far the most powerful user of Skeith, as he was not held back by Corbenik, allowing him to access the full ability of the weapon. However, within just around a month and a half, Majora was killed by Skeith, and this resulted in the creation of Skeith Avatar. Majora's darkest aspect which Skeith exploited was his jealousy of Yamato's superiority over him. Ishi Ishi is unique in that he doesn't experience rapid decline in mental stability as Majora did. He retains his sanity not only due to his unnaturally extreme mental fortitude, but also becaue Corbenik was protecting him. Ishi is also more capable of controlling Skeith without immediate ill effect on his psyche. However, one instance had him almost lose control completely, which resulted in the deaths of over 50 other player killers. This instance had left his mental stability damaged for a time, but this was eventually recovered. Ishi's darkest aspect which Skeith exploited was the overwhelming desire to shed the blood of others, a result of his denial of his true purpose as a Blade Master. Hao Hao had studied Skeith extensively, and therefore knew much more about it than even Yamato does, even figuring out how to capture Skeith directly from another player. He planned to capture Skeith for himself, using Ishi to do so, ending up stealing Skeith directly from Ishi and containing it within an amulet, which is used to suppress the mind-altering effects of Skeith to keep his sanity instead of containing it within himself, which would lead to him falling victim to the madness caused by Skeith. Still, some effects broke through and ended up somehow giving Hao his most powerful ability, Supreme Weapon, as well as making him vulnerable to pain and deleting his HP bar. Due to Hao containing Skeith within an amulet instead of within himself, he cannot unlock the full power of Skeith. Trivia *Skeith is named after Skeith featured in .hack Conglomerate. Category:Ishimura Elite Category:Weapon